Uconn

Huskies overcome woeful shooting to hold off New Hampshire By Ed Daigneault Republican-American

Connecticut's DeAndre Daniels, right is guarded by New Hampshire's Chris Pelcher during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in Storrs, Conn., Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Fred Beckham)

But the UConn men's basketball coach had little beyond a whole bunch of ugly to celebrate Thursday night. The Huskies and New Hampshire engaged in a brutally played game before a crowd of 8,705 at the XL Center with UConn taking a 61-53 victory.

UConn played poorly, probably its worse game of the season. Yet it stands at 6-1, and that's all that matters to Ollie.

"I'm not going to have a pity party," Ollie said. "That's not who I am. We had a good win and I'm not going to apologize for it."

Nor would anybody ask him to do so.

Thus far, UConn has appeared to play to the level of its competition. It combined that Thursday night with playing to the level of its youth and inexperience. The Huskies were an offensive mess most of the night, buoyed early by the strong play of freshman Omar Calhoun and later by the steadying hand of sophomore point guard Ryan Boatright.

Still, what was an 57-46 lead with 1:42 to play became a tenuous 57-53 advantage with 36 seconds left. UConn was able to weather that storm mostly because New Hampshire (2-4) had more trouble putting the ball in the basket than the Huskies.

"We were a little out of it offensively," said Calhoun, who finished with a season-best 16 points. "We played some good defense. Our offense just wasn't that great."

The Huskies can't claim that as their own. The teams combined to miss 79 shots and turn the ball over 28 times. UConn

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shot 36.8 percent, but the Wildcats topped that, shooting a paltry 30.6 percent. Only once in the game did five consecutive possessions produce points.

Some of that can be credited to two good defensive teams. New Hampshire entered the game having allowed opponents to shoot just 35 percent; UConn 31 percent. But open shots missed their marks by quite a bit and possessions were lost amid a barrage of turnovers.

It was one of those stinkers you might expect from a young team finding its way early in the season under a new coach.

"Everybody has games like this when shots aren't going down," said UConn forward DeAndre Daniels, who helped the Huskies outrebound a foe for the first time with 10 boards. "They outhustled us and played harder than us but we're still 6-1.

"We just have to keep playing, play as a team and play together."

UConn never trailed, but it also never led by more than 11 points. The Huskies couldn't find a way to get away from the Wildcats because they couldn't hit shots. UConn hit just one of 14 attempts from 3-point range just days after hitting eight 3-pointers in a row to beat Stony Brook.

Shabazz Napier had just five points as Boatright's 19 points made him the first non-Napier Husky to lead the team in scoring this year. Ferg Myrick led New Hampshire with 20 points, but he took 20 shots to get there. UConn played poorly. The Huskies know that. Ollie knows that.

"We're just not that good to play this way and expect that we're just going to keep winning," Ollie said. "At the end of the day, we made enough plays.

"It's a game that's over with. We're going to learn from it and we're going to grow. We're going to get better."

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